The Soviet Heritage and European Modernism - Heritage ... - Icomos

III. “Heritage at Risk“ – Case Studies from Moscow and the Former Soviet Union
71
Natalia Dushkina
From “Metropolitan” to “Underground”
The Moscow metropolitan is in a class of its own not
merely as a piece of Soviet architecture, but also as a phenomenon
in 20 th -century world architecture and urban design.
This is becoming increasingly clear with the passing
of time, as the oldest metropolitans in the world – those
of London, Budapest, New York, Chicago, systems that
at the dawn of the metro age were outstanding pieces of
engineering, – have gradually lost their uniqueness and
merged with the infrastructure of the enormous cities in
which they are located. Having lost its technological innovativeness
and without any programmatic architectural
idea to express, the metro has turned into an ordinary and
unrespectable form of transport – a subway, underground,
or podzemka [the Russian word for ‘underground railway’].
In Moscow, where the metro was built much later,
opening only in 1935, a different situation exists. Based
on the English method of tunnelling, the Moscow metro
was created, in vivid contrast with systems in the West, as
an underground space that would make sense as a work
of art. We may say with absolute certainty that there is
nothing like it in world architecture of the end of the 19 th
century to the middle of the 20 th century. For the Moscow
metropolitan destroyed the Western stereotype of the
transport structure and created a unique functional space
dressed in the forms of ‘high’ architecture and art.
Over the years of its existence, the Moscow metro
passed through all the various stages in the development
of Soviet architecture. It now has 165 stations (50 of
which were built during the launch of the system in the
1930s to 1950s, when the total length of the lines ran to 66
km), and may be considered a monument to a whole era
in the history of the country. In this sense, the metro may
be regarded as the realisation of a universal programme
to transform life in post-Revolutionary Russia. It is not
simply part of Moscow’s transport infrastructure, but the
embodiment of a utopia of a new type of life – a utopia
which was taken to an absurd extreme: ‘palatial’ halls
1
It is important to emphasise that the extensive construction
carried out underground saved Moscow from far
more destructive reconstruction on the surface. The
metro has undoubtedly performed a conservational role
with regard to Russian heritage. If the creative power of,
and desire for, transformation had not been channelled
underground, the city would have suffered still greater
destruction.
2
Wording used by Aleksey Dushkin himself. See: Natalija
Duškina, ‘Metropolitana: l’archittetura di Duškin’
Mosca. Abitare, Novembre 2004, N. 444, pp. 168–173.
Electrozavodskaya metrostation in Moscow, 1944,
arch. V. Gelfreikh, I. Rozhin. Current condition
flooded with artificial light, built for the people and profoundly
democratic in character, but hidden in the bowels
of the earth, out of sight of those who live on the earth’s
surface. Designed by the leading masters of the age and
decorated with precious materials not usually used in
underground systems, this architectural space contrasted
with living conditions above ground – with the difficult,
messy everyday life of the Soviet citizen. Here was another
world: ‘beautiful’, filled with light, heightened by
the contrast between above and below ground. 1
By the middle of the 1940s, the most fruitful stage in
building the metro was over. The first stations were full of
the ideological purity and austere logic of Constructivism,
qualities which announced the Moscow metropolitan as a
phenomenon in a class of its own. These stations established
the bases of the Moscow school of metro construction
and laid down principles for organising ‘windowless’
underground space. Such principles included: exposure
of structural basis; lack of ballast masses and volumes;
unity of structure and décor; and use of light as the principal
means for creating an architectural image. 2 Thanks
to these qualities, many stations became world-famous,
taking grand-prix or gold medals at international exhibitions
in Paris (1937), New York (1939), and Brussels
(1958). By the middle of the 1950s, Moscow had gained
an underground copy of itself in the form of an integrated
urban ensemble. A second, extensive urban organism had
been created – a ‘metropolia’, a daughter city to Moscow
itself, a formation stamped with many of the latter’s most
recognizable features. The Moscow metro became part of
Russian culture and heritage.
The last two decades have seen a rapid deterioration
in the condition of the entire metro system. The inten-
_ Heritage @ Risk Special 2006